PlayStation's renewed focus on family-friendly games, fueled by the phenomenal success of Astro Bot, signals a potential resurgence of beloved legacy IPs.
Astro Bot's Triumph: Astro Bot, released in September 2024, has surpassed 1.5 million copies sold and clinched the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards 2024. This success, including wins in other categories like Best Family Game, prompted Sony's strategic shift towards expanding its family-genre offerings.
Sony's Q3 2025 earnings announcement highlighted Astro Bot's impact, emphasizing its contribution to a broader game portfolio encompassing family-friendly and live-service titles. The success of Helldivers 2 further solidified this trend.
A Look at PlayStation's Family-Friendly Past and Present: While PlayStation boasts a history of successful family-oriented games (Sly Cooper, Ape Escape, Jak and Daxter), many have seen limited recent activity. The loss of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro to Xbox leaves Ratchet & Clank, LittleBigPlanet, and now Astro Bot as key recent examples.
PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst underscored Astro Bot's significance, praising its impact and celebrating its achievement as a testament to PlayStation's capabilities.
Legacy IPs and Future Possibilities: Astro Bot's success, coupled with Hulst's emphasis on leveraging PlayStation's extensive IP portfolio, hints at the potential return of dormant family-friendly franchises. The appearance of Ape Escape monkeys in the Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater trailer and the strong performance of Sly Cooper on PlayStation Plus' Classics Catalog further fuel this speculation.
New Astro Bot Content: A free update, launching February 13th, 2025, will introduce five challenging new levels within the "Vicious Void Galaxy," each featuring a new Special Bot to rescue and subsequent Time Attack mode availability. PS5 Pro users will also enjoy a 60fps experience.
The release schedule for the new levels is as follows:
These updates will be released every Thursday at 6:00 AM PT, 2:00 PM GMT, and 10:00 PM JST. Astro Bot remains a PlayStation 5 exclusive.
LATEST ARTICLES 19
2025-12
In today’s mobile gaming landscape, your next adventure, match, or brain-teaser is just a few taps away.But this convenience often comes at a price, especially when those small in-app purchases accumulate faster than you realize.Whether you play puzz
Author: LucyReading:0
19
2025-12
The Tekken 8 community has expressed strong dissatisfaction with the controversial changes introduced in the Season 2 update.According to the patch notes, character damage potential and offensive pressure have been universally increased, leading some
Author: LucyReading:0
19
2025-12
Hero shooters have faced considerable challenges in recent years. While some titles promised groundbreaking team-based experiences, far more ended up abandoned - left with unfinished metas and players migrating to games like Genshin Impact simply fro
Author: LucyReading:1
18
2025-12
Zen Pinball is welcoming Lara Croft in grand style. On June 19th, Zen Studios will launch Tomb Raider Pinball, a new DLC table joining its extensive pinball collection. The table will be available across multiple platforms: Zen Pinball World on Andro
Author: LucyReading:1
